Wadih el-Hage

Wadih el-Hage (25 July 1960-) was an al-Qaeda member who served as the secretary of Osama bin Laden. el-Hage was involved with the Jamaat ul-Fuqra terrorist group, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and the murders of Rashad Khalifa and Meir Kahane.

Biography
Wadih el-Hage was born on 25 July 1960 in Sidon, Lebanon to a Maronite Christian family, but he converted to Islam while he was growing up in Kuwait. In 1978, he studied urban planning at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in Louisiana, United States, but he interrupted his schooling by heading to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. el-Hage was under the command of Abdullah Azzam, and he returned to his studies in January 1985, graduating in 1986 and marrying an American woman. He moved to Arizona soon after, and he became a naturalized citizen in 1989. In December 1989, he attended a Muslim conference in Oklahoma, meeting Mahmud Abouhalima, and he bought Abouhalima a revolver that would be given to El Sayyid Nosair in order to assassinate the extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane. On 31 January 1990, el-Hage was suspected of murdering Doctor Rashad Khalifa on behalf of the African-American Muslim Jamaat ul-Fuqra terrorist group in Tucson, and he took part in charity work in later years under Mustafa Shalabi, who was later murdered. In January 1992, he was arrested for writing false checks, and he was later involved with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. el-Hage was later based in Sudan, departing from America in 1993, but in 1994 his wife April convinced him to leave Sudan and al-Qaeda. He moved to Nairobi, Kenya, but he continued working for Osama bin Laden as a secretary until his eviction from Kenya on 21 August 1998, and on 15 September 1998 he was arrested upon his return to the United States. Ever since his 20 September arrest for perjury, he has not been released.